By Andres I Vecino-Ortiza & Deivis N Guzman-Tordecilla  

Objective: To assess the effect of a permanent gun-carrying restriction on gun-related mortality in Colombia between 2008 and 2014, and determine differences in the effect of the restriction by place of death and sex. Methods: In 2012, Bogotá and Medellín introduced a permanent gun-carrying restriction. We compared gun-related mortality rates in these cities (intervention cities) with the rates in all other Colombian cities with more than 500 000 inhabitants (control cities). We used data from the Colombian National Department of Statistics to calculate monthly gun-related mortality rates between 2008 and 2014 for intervention and control cities. We used a differences-in-differences method with fixed effects to assess differences in gun-related mortality in intervention and control cities before and after the introduction of the gun-carrying restriction. We stratified effects by place of death (public area or residence) and sex. We made robustness checks to test the assumptions of the models. Findings: Gun-related deaths in the control and intervention cities decreased between 2008 and 2014; however, the decrease was greater in the intervention cities (from 20.29 to 14.93 per 100 000 population; 26.4%) than in the control cities (from 37.88 to 34.56 per 100 000 population; 8.8%). The restriction led to a 22.3% reduction in the monthly gun-related mortality rate in Bogotá and Medellín. The reduction was greater in public areas and for males. Robustness checks supported the assumptions of the models. Conclusion_ The permanent restriction on carrying guns reduced gun-related deaths. This policy could be used to reduce gun-related injuries in urban centres of other countries with large numbers of gun-related deaths.

Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 98 (‎3)‎: 170 - 176

By Carolina Velez Ospina

The provision effects of local public goods on crime and education are not clear in the literature. While some argue that provision does not affect these outcomes, other find that effects depend on the benefits it offers to the community. This paper studies the effect of the construction of cultural centers in Medellín, Colombia on crime and test scores in mathematics and language. This policy is interesting since the communities participated in the design of these cultural centers. Using a dynamic difference-in-differences strategy, I find that schools near centers improve their test performance, especially for younger children. Regarding crime, I find that in neighborhoods near centers, there is a reduction in motorcycle and car theft crimes.

  Universidad del Rosario, Facultad de Economía, 2020. 51p.   

By Christopher Blattman, Donald Green, Daniel Ortega, Santiago Tobón

In 2016 the city of Bogotá doubled police patrols and intensified city services on high-crime streets. They did so based on a policy and criminological consensus that such place-based programs not only decrease crime, but also have positive spillovers to nearby streets. To test this, we worked with Bogotá to experiment on an unprecedented scale. They randomly assigned 1,919 streets to either 8 months of doubled police patrols, greater municipal services, both, or neither. Such scale brings econometric challenges. Spatial spillovers in dense networks introduce bias and complicate variance estimation through “fuzzy clustering.” But a design-based approach and randomization inference produce valid hypothesis tests in such settings. In contrast to the consensus, we find intensifying state presence in Bogotá had modest but imprecise direct effects and that such crime displaced nearby, especially property crimes. Confidence intervals suggest we can rule out total reductions in crime of more than 2–3% from the two policies. More promising, however, is suggestive evidence that more state presence led to an 5% fall in homicides and rape citywide. One interpretation is that state presence may more easily deter crimes of passion than calculation, and place-based interventions could be targeted against these incredibly costly and violent crimes.

Chicago: Becker Friedman Institute, University of Chicago, 2019. 80p.

By Richard Wortley And Stephen Smallbone

From the foreword by Graeme Newman: “…We see from the authors' outstanding review of who the offenders and victims are and how they are connected through the Internet and other technologies that Internet child pornography is the quintessential global crime, bringing with it the increasingly familiar problems of policing-crimes defined differently across multiple countries and jurisdictions, the labyrinthine and decentralized nature of the Internet, the capability to transmit images across borders around the world instantaneously, and the availability of smartphones and other mobile devices to children and those who would exploit them. They remind us that at the shocking end of the continuum of child pornography, it is essentially local because the actual, original production of child pornographic images most often results from contact sexual abuse by adults with close familial or social relationships to the children. It is the international distribution and con- sumption of images that convert the local crimes into global ones…”

NY. Praeger. 2012. 165p.

Edited by Mangai Natarajan

International crime and justice is an emerging field that covers crime and justice from a global perspective. 'This book introduces the nature of internationaland transnational crimes; theoretical foundations to understanding the relationship between social change and the waxing and waning of the crime opportunity structure; globalization; migration; culture conflicts and the emerging legal frameworks for their prevention and control. tI presents the challenges involved in delivering justice and international cooperative efforts to deter, detect, and respond to international and transnational crimes, and the need for international research and data resources to go beyond anecdote and impres- sionistic accounts to testing and developing theories to build the discipline that bring tangible improvements to the peace, security, and well-being of the globalizing world. 'This books is a timely analysis of the complex subject ofinternational crime and justice for students, scholars, policy makers, and advocates who strive for the pursuit of justice for millions of victims.

Cambridge England and NY.. Cambridge University Press. 2019. 560p.

 Kalliroi S. Ziavroua , Stephen Noguerab , Vassiliki A. Boumba

Counterfeit, fake, adulterated or falsified drugs and pharmaceuticals, could be branded or generic drugs, excipients and active substances (in drugs and vaccines), medical supplies and devices, etc, intended to pass as the original. Counterfeits are always inferior in terms of quality, safety and efficacy compared to the original pharmaceuticals, and subsequently, they pose an unpredictable risk to public health and lead to loss of confidence in medicines, healthcare providers, and health systems. In the decades before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, a constant trend of increased trafficking was reported. However, the pandemic created a combination of public health emergency, economic distress, and misinformation-driven panic that made problematic the access and supply of high quality essential medicines and health products, and pushed consumers and vendors even more towards counterfeit pharmaceuticals. This contribution aims to review the trends in counterfeit drugs and pharmaceuticals trafficking, the health impact of their use, as well as, measures and actions implemented to restrict their proliferation, before and during COVID-19 pandemic; the relative recommendations, the expressed perspectives and the existing limitations are thoroughly discussed.   

  Forensic Science International 338 (2022) 111382

By The United Nations of Drugs and Crime (UNODC)

  Restrictions on movement imposed by govern- ments across the world due to the COVID-19 pandemic have had an impact on the trafficking of substandard and falsified medical products. Interpol and the World Customs Organization (WCO) reported that seizures of substandard and falsified medical products, including person- al protective equipment (PPE), increased for the first time in March 2020. The emergence of trafficking in PPE signals a significant shift in organized criminal group behaviour that is directly attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has brought huge demand for medical products such as PPE over a relatively short period of time. It is foreseeable that, with the evolution of COVID-19 and developments in medicinal treatments and/or the repurposing of existing medicines, criminal behaviour will shift from trafficking in PPE to the development and delivery of a COVID-19 vaccine. Furthermore, cyberattacks on critical infrastructure involved in addressing the pandemic are likely to continue in the form of online scams aimed at health procurement authorities. Challenges in pandemic preparedness, ranging from weak regulatory and legal frameworks to the prevention of the manufacturing and trafficking of substandard and falsified products and cyber security shortcomings, were evident before COVID-19, but the pandemic has exacerbated them and it will be difficult to make significant improvements in the immediate short term. The report concludes that crime targeting COVID-19 medical products will become more focused with significantly greater risks to pub- lic health as the containment phase of the pan- demic passes to the treatment and prevention stages.  

Vienna: UNODC, 2020. 31p.

By Ben Brewster, Robinson, G., Brotherton, V., Silverman, B., & Walsh, D

The second briefing from ongoing research indicates that restrictions introduced in response to Covid-19 have forced adaptations in the methods used by County Lines drug supply networks and have impacted upon the ways law enforcement work to detect and dismantle County Lines activity, as well as safeguard those vulnerable to criminal exploitation.

Nottingham, UK: University of Nottingham, 2021. 3p. 

By The United Nations Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict (OSRSG CAAC)

  Each year thousands of children are deprived of their liberty in situations of armed conflict, many because of their actual or alleged association with parties to the conflict or on alleged national security-related grounds. The increasing numbers of children being detained is a concern in itself, but also because child detainees are highly vulnerable to a wide range of human rights violations and abuses, including conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV). The vast majority (over 95%) of children detained in armed conflict are boys. So, although all children are at risk of sexual violence in detention settings, and girls are disproportionality impacted by CRSV generally, this discussion paper focuses on how detained boys are exposed to the risk of CRSV in particularly high numbers and examines possible responses to this. Based on available data, rape and other forms of sexual violence against males, including boys, are reported more frequently in situations of deprivation of liberty than in most other settings. Although many, possibly most, incidents are never reported, CRSV against boys deprived of their liberty has been documented in recent years in countries including Afghanistan, Central African Republic (CAR), Iraq, Myanmar, Nigeria, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Most documented incidents relate to boys held by state security forces but CRSV against boys deprived of their liberty by non-State armed groups (NSAGs) has also been reported. In both instances, CRSV has been used as a form of torture, to punish, to extract information or to exert authority. In some contexts, it is also committed by other detainees. Chronic under-reporting of CRSV in general, combined with challenges involved in gathering data in detention settings, means that the true scale of the problem is not known and the risks to, vulnerabilities of, and impacts on young detainees are poorly understood. This, by extension, hampers efforts to effectively prevent and respond to it. However, CRSV in detention settings is not a standalone issue, but must be addressed as part of broader, ongoing efforts to protect children in situations of armed conflict. It is also necessarily a collective endeavour, requiring dedicated attention from a wide range of different stakeholders.   

New York: United Nations, 2022. 44p.

By The United Nations Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict (OSRSG CAAC)

  In the Central African Republic (CAR), thousands of children have been recruited and used by parties to armed conflict over the last decade, predominantly by non-State armed groups (NSAGs). According to UN reports, many girls have been recruited for a wide range of purposes, including sexual exploitation or otherwise subjected to sexual abuse during their association with the groups, with devastating consequences for the girls. As is the case elsewhere, far less is known about how sexual violence impacts boys associated with fighting forces, such as happens in CAR, and about the needs for care and support that may arise from it. Recognising that conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) disproportionately affects women, including girls, and that all CRSV is severely underreported for all age and gender groups, this discussion note is intended to shed light on the under-discussed issue of how CRSV affects boys, as demonstrated in one of the situations of children and armed conflict (CAAC), specifically in CAR. Its aim is to contribute to building a better understanding of the potential risks to, and vulnerabilities of, boys to CRSV when associated with armed forces or armed groups in CAR, and to explore how existing medical care and mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS), as well as legal/judicial and reintegration responses, can better take account of the possibility of such abuse. The following analysis and recommendations are not claimed to be exclusively relevant to boys in CAR, but instead to provide greater visibility to a phenomenon that exists in many conflict settings. Based on information gathered between March and July 2022 through interviews and focus group discussions (FGDs) with actors involved in efforts to secure the release and reintegration of children associated with armed forces or armed groups (CAAFAG) and respond to CRSV and other forms of gender-based violence (GBV) in CAR, a range of gaps in knowledge and other challenges were identified.  

New York: United Nations, 2022. 52p.

By Sheridan Miyamoto ; Cynthia Bittner; Daniel F. Perkins; Lorah Dorn; Cameron Richardson; Hui Zhao; Dennis Scanlon

This is the final report following 4 years of developing and operating the SAFE-T Center, which was launched in 2017 with support from the U.S. Justice Department’s Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) as a means of improving access to high quality sexual assault (SA) care by providing expert, live, interactive mentoring, quality assurance, and evidence-based training to less experienced nurses via telehealth technology.

 When a SA examination is performed at one of the partner hospitals, one of SAFE-T Center’s expert Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners (SANEs) (teleSANEs) provides real-time support to both the on-site nurse and the patient, ensuring best practices, proper evidence collection, and a supportive environment for the patient. For the current project, detailed progress reports were completed on a biannual basis throughout the funding period (2017-2021). Given the level of detail in prior progress reports, the current report focuses instead on a high-level overview of project goals, the philosophy and approach to the work in advancing goals, and key outcomes. A critical part of this effort was to determine whether the solutions envisioned and created had the positive impact intended. Much of the report addresses reflections on program effects and lessons learned. Overall, it was evident that comprehensive hubs of expertise can increase equitable access to quality SA care in a field with chronic shortages of expertise. Community partners in eight diverse and unique communities value the resources provided. Policy and legislative initiatives are needed to establish minimum standards of SA care and to provide incentives and support to ensure hospitals that are not able to offer expert comprehensive SANE-led care can provide expertise through telehealth programs.

State College, PA: Pennsylvania Sexual Assault Forensic Examination and Training (SAFE-T) Center, 2022. 64p.

By The U.S. Library of Congress, Federal Research Division

The goal of this report is to provide SMART and other interested stakeholders with a global list of country legislations and statutes pertaining to sex offender registration and notification. This report contains a main narrative section and an appendix. Divided into a main report and an appendix, this report first presents the laws and regulations of forty-one countries found to have sex offender registration and notification systems, or something comparable. The appendix lists another forty-two countries found to have had notable movement regarding sex offender registration laws; for example, those that have proposed legislation on the subject matter, or, that have attempted, but failed, to pass relevant bills. Countries for which researchers did not find relevant information are excluded from this report. Countries within the main report are organized into six geographic regions: Africa [Sub-Sahara], East Asia and the Pacific, Europe and Eurasia, Near East [North Africa and Middle East], South and Central Asia, and the Western Hemisphere. Associated territories, states, and in the case of the United Kingdom, Crown Dependencies and colonies, that have distinct local legislation or regulatory language pertaining to sex offender registration and notification, are included as well.  

Washington, DC: U..S. Library of Congress, 2022, 225p.

By Alexis Jay, Malcolm Evans. Ivor Frank and Drusilla Sharpling  

In this investigation, the Inquiry considered the sexual exploitation of children by organised networks. Department for Education guidance recognises that child sexual exploitation is a form of child sexual abuse. It is said to occur “where an individual or group takes advantage of an imbalance of power to coerce, manipulate or deceive a child or young person under the age of 18 into sexual activity (a) in exchange for something the victim needs or wants, and/or (b) for the financial advantage or increased status of the perpetrator or facilitator”.1 A ‘network’ was defined for the purposes of this investigation as “two or more individuals (whether identified or not) who are known to (or associated with) one another”. Offender networks are often loosely interconnected rather than formally organised and older children or teenagers may also be involved in grooming victims. The sexual exploitation of children by networks is not a rare problem confined to a small number of areas with high-profile criminal cases. It is a crime which involves the sexual abuse of children in the most degrading and destructive ways, by multiple perpetrators. The Inquiry therefore chose to base this investigation on areas which had not already been the subject of independent investigation (such as Rotherham, Rochdale and Oxford). The intention was to obtain an accurate picture of current practice at a strategic level and through examination of individual cases, as well as drawing on wider knowledge about child sexual exploitation in England and Wales. Six case study areas were chosen: Durham, Swansea, Warwickshire, St Helens, Tower Hamlets and Bristol. Eight themes were examined in each area: • problem profiling and disruption of child sexual exploitation; • empathy and concern for child victims; • risk assessment, protection from harm and outcomes for children; • missing children, return home interviews and children in care; • male victims; • children with disabilities; • partnership working; and • audit, review and performance improvement.

London: Independent Inquiry Into Child Sexual Abuse,   2022. 193p.

By Vic F.. Wiener

Placing youth on sex offender registries fails to advance public safety and has devastating consequences for registered youth and their families. While 38 states place youth adjudicated delinquent on sex offender registries, Florida’s laws are some of the harshest in the country—children as young as 14 can be placed on the public registry for life, subject to residency restrictions limiting where they can live or work, and prevented from wearing Halloween costumes. Any failure to comply exactly with the complex 6,000-word registration law places children at risk of large fines and years of imprisonment. This report examines Florida’s youth registration laws and their history, city and county ordinances that affect registered youth, and data on registered youth in Florida.

Philadelphia: Juvenile Law Center, 2022. 52p.

By Maxi Ussar

Globally, 1 in 5 girls and 1 in 13 boys have been sexually exploited or abused before reaching the age of 18. Some recent research suggests that online interaction is now so ubiquitous that it is likely to feature in some form in almost all cases of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Increased internet penetration and advances in technology have allowed offenders to engage in child sexual exploitation and abuse in an unprecedented environment of secrecy and relative anonymity across the globe. While the full scope and extent of the threat of technology-facilitated child sexual exploitation and abuse remains unknown, global statistics show alarming increases in reported cases to national hotlines and clearing houses in recent years. A new sense of urgency: The COVID-19 pandemic, which brought with it increased emotional vulnerabilities, economic hardship and surges in unsupervised time online among children and adolescents is likely to have magnified vulnerabilities to child exploitation and abuse, particularly online. Widespread disruptions in child protection services across the world have left vulnerable children without access to adequate protection, further contributing to a new sense of urgency to address online child sexual exploitation and abuse. The WeProtect Initiative. To tackle online child sexual abuse and exploitation globally, the UK government, with support from other national governments, leading technological companies, INTERPOL, UN agencies and civil society organizations, established the WeProtect initiative in 2014. The initiative developed the WeProtect Global Alliance Model National Response (MNR), which provides a comprehensive blueprint for effectively tackling child sexual exploitation and abuse at the national level.

 New York: United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) December 2021.   106p.

By Michael Skidmore, Beth Aitkenhead and Rick Muir

The internet has enabled the production and consumption of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) on an industrial scale. It has also created new opportunities for adults to sexually abuse and exploit children. The volume of online child sexual abuse offences is now so great that it has simply overwhelmed the ability of law enforcement agencies, internationally, to respond. However, there is nothing pre-determined about this situation. Public policy can make a difference. This report looks at what can be done to help “turn the tide” on online Child Sexual Abuse (CSA). It does this by first describing the scale and nature of online CSA, second, assessing the ability of the police and law enforcement to investigate these crimes, third, by examining the service provided to victims of online CSA and, finally by looking at what more can be done to prevent online CSA in the first place.  

London: Police Foundation, 2022. 95p.

By John J. Chin, Lois M. Takahashi, Yeonsoo Baik, Caitlin Ho, Stacy To, Abigail Radaza, Elizabeth S.C. Wu, Sungmin Lee, Melanie Dulfo, Daun Jung  

Recent media accounts about high-net-worth individuals, including New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, being identified as clients of illicit massage parlors have gained national attention.1 Other media reports have documented raids, mass arrests and undercover stings of massage parlors in US cities and suburbs. Although these recent accounts highlight the linkages between massage parlors and human trafficking and the fact that many of these women are Asian immigrants, rarely has there been media coverage of the daily experiences of the workers in these illicit massage parlors from their own perspectives. Why are women working in these establishments and under what conditions do they labor? What is the arrest process like for them? What solutions can be offered that do not further penalize, traumatize, or victimize an already vulnerable population? We aim in this analysis to summarize previous research and to report on our recent interviews with Asian immigrant women working in illicit massage parlors in New York City and Los Angeles County – to portray a full range of “occupational arrangements, power relations, and worker experiences.” By “illicit,” we mean a subset of massage parlors that purport to operate as legal businesses but where sexual services are illegally bought and sold. Our analysis suggests that some of the polarized debates around illicit massage parlors can be at least partly reconciled by framing massage parlor work as a labor rights issue, as part of the larger immigrant story of survival, and as a law enforcement reform issue

New York: Hunter College of the City University of New York and Los Angeles: University of Southern California, 2019. 44p.

By Susan Hennessey

There is an unacknowledged Venn diagram at the heart of the Going Dark debate. Circle A represents crimes for which various manifestations of technology pose extreme challenges to law enforcement investigations: for example, computer offenses that take place exclusively online or technology-based narcotics trafficking and money laundering. Circle B represents crimes for which society demands an exceptionally high level of effective prevention, investigation, and prosecution: violent offenses with identifiable victims like murder or rape. This is not to say Circle A crimes are unimportant—only that, taken alone, society is more inclined to view the security benefits of robust encryption as outweighing the net harms. Likewise, it is certainly true that investigation of Circle B crimes can be impeded by encryption and other technology. But more often than not, law enforcement has at least some other avenues of obtaining evidence, such as from a crime scene or from witnesses.

Washington, DC: Hoover Institution, 2017. 40p.  

By The All Survivors Project (ASP) and the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School (IHRC)

The pervasive nature and appalling consequences of sexual violence against women, men, girls, and boys, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI+) persons, in situations of armed conflict are well established. Detention settings are a key context of vulnerability to conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), as noted by United Nations Security Council Resolution 2467 (2019). These Principles aim to outline and clarify existing international law and standards to prevent and address CRSV in detention settings. These Principles apply to all types of detention settings where people are deprived of their liberty for reasons linked to armed conflict (international and non-international). Such settings include official and unofficial places of detention operated by state security forces, such as armed forces, police, border guards, and others. The Principles also apply to situations of deprivation of liberty by non-state armed groups (NSAGs). Under international humanitarian law (IHL) it is contested whether NSAGs have a legal basis to lawfully deprive people of their liberty. Nonetheless, whenever NSAGs detain people, they must comply with a range of detention-related IHL obligations, including to treat detainees humanely and take measures to prevent and address sexual violence. The Principles identify preventive and responsive measures applicable to all persons deprived of their liberty in situations of armed conflict. While the Principles are specific to situations of ongoing armed conflict, they are also relevant to the immediate post conflict phase, when sexual violence linked to the conflict may still be occurring in detention settings.  

Cambridge, MA: All Survivors Project, 2020. 66p.

By Her Majesty's Government  (UK)

 Violence against women and girls is an unacceptable, preventable issue which blights the lives of millions. Crimes of violence against women and girls are many and varied. They include rape and other sexual offences, stalking, domestic abuse, ‘honourbased’ abuse (including female genital mutilation and forced marriage and ‘honour’ killings), ‘revenge porn’ and ‘upskirting’, as well as many others. While different types of violence against women and girls have their own distinct causes and impacts on victims and survivors, what these crimes share is that they disproportionately affect women and girls. These crimes are deeply harmful, not only because of the profound effect they can have on victims, survivors and their loved ones, but also because of the impact they can have on wider society, impacting on the freedom and equality we all should value and enjoy. These impacts can include day-to-day decision-making, but also extend to the social and economic costs to the economy, society, and taxpayer. We know that the devastating impact of these crimes can include the loss of life, the destruction of homes, futures, and lives. Everyone in modern Britain should have the freedom to succeed and everyone deserves the right to public safety and protection under the law. This is as true for women and girls as it is for anyone else. Throughout this Strategy we draw on the testimonies of victims and survivors who bravely describe the impact these crimes can have. The Government thanks them for their contributions.

London: HM Government, 2021. 85p.